1. Technical Field
The invention relates to docking stations and KVM (Keyboard/Video/Mouse) switches, particularly to a combination of a docking station and a KVM switch.
2. Related Art
A smartphone is a mobile phone built on a mobile operating system, with more advanced computing capability connectivity than a conventional cellular phone. In essence, a smartphone is a computer-based cellular phone. As a result, more and more users treat a smartphone as a mixture of a cellular phone and a laptop or tablet computer.
There must be a rechargeable battery, a touchscreen panel and a connection port in a smartphone. When a smartphone is used as a laptop computer at home or office, a docking station is needed for charging battery, data communication and connecting human interface devices (HIDs) such as a keyboard and mouse. Also, an external display much larger than the touchscreen panel of a smartphone is required by most users.
Generally, a smartphone is provided with only one communication port, for example, a micro-USB port. For both input/output bidirectional data communication and audio/video unidirectional data transmission, some smartphones are provided with a micro-USB port with a built-in mobile audio/video interface such as the Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL) or the Mobility DisplayPort (MyDP) interface.
However, such an MHL-enabled or MyDP-enabled micro-USB port has to cease its USB functions while the MHL or MyDP function is being activated, and vice versa. In more detail, a user cannot use the MHL-enabled or MyDP-enabled micro-USB port to connect a keyboard, mouse or any other USB-HIDs when the port is connected to an external display. The only solution to simultaneously connect an external display and HIDs is to wirelessly connect HIDs via BLUETOOTH and to wiredly connect an external display via the MHL-enabled or MyDP-enabled micro-USB port. This is inconvenient and complicated for users. Furthermore, BLUETOOTH HIDs are much more expensive than general USB-HIDs.
There is some smartphone manufacture to provide a smartphone product with a proprietary hybrid interface connector that combines two sub-connectors—one for audio/video data transmission and the other one for USB data communication. However, such a proprietary connector lacks compatibility with other smartphone or peripheral manufactures. Users' selectivity is seriously limited.
Some users prefer using a single set of keyboard, display and mouse to be selectively connected with two or more computers. Some users may want the peripheral devices which connect with a docking station to be used by a desktop or laptop computer. Under the circumstances, a docking station with a KVM switch is required.